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Equality's War Against Reality

(This is an abridged and revised version of an essay published eight years ago.)

Most readers of this site are conscious enough of how egalitarianism shapes American political ideals. What is seldom discussed or recognized, however, is how egalitarianism pervades (and distorts) every other aspect of modern life. The human mind longs above all for consistency. Egalitarianism, being a false dogma, finds reality inconsistent and therefore seeks ways to force conformity.

Human activity is diverse. Some activities are more ennobling and virtuous than other activities, some are more important, some are more necessary, some require more skill or education, some are more visible or prominent, and some are more influential. At the same time not all places are alike. The beach is one place, the supermarket is another, and the opera house is yet another, each distinguished from the other by the level of civilized activity for which it is best suited.

Men acknowledge these distinctions, in part, by their manner of dress. Once upon a time every man had his "uniform": one could tell his line of work, his recreation, and yes, his class by how he was dressed. And furthermore, there were different "uniforms" for different activities. For many years my great uncle, now age 94, would take my great aunt out to dinner on Thursday nights. He donned a coat and tie, and she wore a nice dress. Their destination was often McDonalds, but that wasn't the point: he was a man was taking his wife out to dinner, and that was an exalted ritual beyond just their private time together. Indeed, it was a public sign of his love for her.

But today, it seems, we are all individualists, disdaining any group associations; and we are unconscious egalitarians who deny that any activity or place is more deserving than another. Outside of the Old South, Americans dress for church as they would dress for the supermarket or even a day at the beach. Gone is the tradition of wearing one's "Sunday clothes" for the most exalted activity man can possibly perform - the corporate worship of his Creator. The modern clergyman has exchanged his cassock and collar for the anonymity of civilian clothes, robbing strangers of the ability to recognize him in an emergency. Ladies' veils, which once adorned the heads of Protestant and Catholic women alike and publicly identified a woman's marital status (black for married, white for unmarried), were universally discarded almost overnight by the newly liberated women in the pew. Nuns have renounced their habits, businessmen have lost their suits, millers have forsaken their hats, schoolchildren have ditched their uniforms, and all of society is “all casual, all the time” — or so it seems. Not even sex constrains our apparel: our men have rings in their ears, our ladies have tattoos on their ankles, and blue jeans have become the preferred clothing of both sexes.

Now let us consider architecture. The salient feature of modern architecture is horizontalism. Vertical structures are thought to be hierarchical, signifying their relative importance or prominence, and pointing heavenward in the case of churches. Egalitarianism cannot abide the appearance of hierarchy, so modern structures tend to emphasize the horizontal. Modern churches, for example, have fewer steps: the altar and pulpit are closer to the level of "the people", lest anyone suspect that something special - something qualitatively superior to ordinary things - happens in those places. That is not to say that modern buildings are always flat. In high density areas height cannot be avoided, and sometimes height is still desired for practical reasons. But the horizontal element is incorporated in other ways - low ceilings, non-vertical windows, horizontal lines, soft angles, "open" floorplans, "walls" with gaping holes, glass walls and mirrors, "rooms" without doors, the elimination of variation in light and darkness, homogeneous or randomly diverse coloration, and the minimizing of all meaningful distinctions. The obvious goal is an equality of space.

Other examples are plentiful: the refusal of libraries and schools to make necessary distinctions in order to censor dangerous and immoral literature; the demise of capitalization, punctuation and grammar in written communication - things which organize thought in an hierarchical manner; promiscuous ecumenism in some religious quarters, which ignores (at best) or even denies the existence of truth and falsehood in religious claims; the phony "inclusion" of workers and employees in business decisions via endless meetings and committees because executives do not want to appear "elitist"; in the Catholic Church, the phenomenon of "collegiality" and lay collaboration, intended to make everyone a decision-maker, but which only masks a new and dishonest form of clericalism.

Despite all of this, reality still insists on showing up. The egalitarians haven't eliminated hierarchy: they have merely replaced a natural hierarchy with an unnatural one. What is more, under egalitarian rule the natural order of things tends to re-assert itself in creative ways. As C.S. Lewis wrote:

Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes or film stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

Feminism, the most successful of modern egalitarian projects, has succeeded temporarily in deposing the rule of Christian patriarchy, but what is now emerging in the shadows is a new barbarian patriarchy without any of the self-control or restraints of its predecessor. Feminism is not long for this world, and its legacy may well exceed its worst patriarchal nightmare. The same is true of egalitarianism in general. Christianity took the old, harsh, cruel pagan inequalities and and cleansed them, softened them, perfected them, placing them in the service of God and man. Modernity, in rejecting God, believes it has finally defeated hierarchy and inequality ... but that is an illusion. Nature abhors a vacuum. Our future without God is not an egalitarian paradise, but a return to the savage inequality of old.

Comments (55)

Jeff,
If, as you say, the human mind craves consistency, then it's going to be difficult for you to write convincingly against egalitarianism, and in favor of human differences, if you insist on resorting to "class" -- as if all so-called middle class persons were somehow the same and could be lumped safely and accurately together into an impersonal, amorphous, faceless mass called "middle class" -- as if "class" weren't a sociologist's fiction. In the real world outside our heads, classes don't exist.

It's also going to be difficult for you to gainsay egalitarianism if you insist on all persons dressing the same way for the same activity -- "uniforms," you call them. If you're going to insist on uniforms, and on the uniformity that goes with them, then don't be surprised when the egalitarianism and cult of sameness you promote in this arena grow to surround you on all sides. For example, there's no good reason why all those you think of as belonging to a particular class ought to dress and act alike while, at the same time, you bemoan egalitarianism. Wear a suit and tie to McDonald's or to the beach if you like. That's perfectly fine. But don't do it because you supposedly belong to a particular class and that's how all folks in that class ought to act and dress if they want to demonstrate marital love in public. I love my wife, and she me. That's evident wherever we are and whatever we wear. There is no uniform of love -- or of class.

Or of worship. If there were, I see no compelling reason why it ought to be the same uniform as the uniform we wear for showing love at McDonald's.

I'm not complaining about decorum, which is perfectly fine. I am complaining about a so-called "decorum" based on class differences and not on moral suitability.

I suspect that I would disagree with Jeff, on the one hand, on some particulars of propriety in dress. (I do not dislike blue jeans, though I do dislike immodest or ripped-up blue jeans, of which there are now all too many.) But I suspect I may disagree with Michael, on the other hand, concerning the implicit notion that _moral_ suitability is the only thing that should influence dress (if that's what you're saying, Michael). After all, you mentioned "decorum," and the truth is that decorum is always going to be a matter to no small extent of custom rather than of morality per se. Part of what I think Jeff is seeing, and seeing correctly, is that the new notion of decorum is that there is no such thing as decorum. Perhaps a way of seeing the distinction between a _different_ way of showing decorum and a _deliberate abandonment_ of decorum would be this: A woman might wear a nice, dressy pantsuit to church as one way of dressing up for church. But if she wears jeans and a T-shirt, she just isn't bothering to dress up at all. The former might mean that she has a different notion of decorous dress-up wear for church from someone who opposes pantsuits for women. The latter means that she disagrees with the notion of decorous dress-up wear altogether. The difference is pretty obvious.

By the way, here's something I think all three of us (I don't know about other readers) can agree in shaking our heads over: I once saw a discussion on-line among some young women who were annoyed with the elderly people in their church because the elderly people didn't like it when the young people wore _torn up_ jeans to church. One of the girls heard an elderly lady say that the torn jeans were disrespectful. The girl was indignant. Wait until you hear what she thought was a devastating reply to the elderly lady: She told her that torn jeans are _expensive_. She thought this actually was an answer to the woman's claim that they were disrespectful. That she and her friends are silly lemmings for paying high sums for hideous, damaged clothing that doesn't even cover them because it has huge holes torn in it never occurred to her as a relevant consideration.

Sloppiness today doesn't know class, the mess crosses all lines. Kids go to school looking like young hobos, the teachers a rung or two better. It's in keeping with the rest of where we're headed and bears some thought as to the relation.
Left out, the required Three Day Stubble Look for men. I just know that when MR X, movie star, shaves he stays in, must stay in, until he grows the unshaven look. Then makes sure he is noticed and photographed. It's becoming a status thing, looking like a slob that is.

Now if you'll forgive me I have to read my People Magazine, then go to the library to, to, rent a video. What else would you do in a library?

I recently just started going back to church (a beautiful, traditional Catholic church). I remember getting ready for my first mass -- putting on my shirt and tie and dress pants and getting to church only to find men in jeans, women in jeans, kids in t-shirts, etc. I have to admit I was taken aback -- not because I'm a cranky old reactionary who laments how everything has changed -- but because I was in a church that was built to honor the glory and beauty of God (click here for a nice short video of the basilica: http://www.qasparish.org/) and I was surrounded by folks who didn't seem to respect that truth. What strange times we live in!

As for feminism, in case you haven't already read this disturbing article, check out what feminism has wrought for a certain segment of our nation's young men and women who used to be engaged in what we would call courting:

That Allen piece makes for a really depressing read, I'm afraid. Plus the vulgarity is (of necessity, considering the subject-matter) rather unrelenting. I'm not sure, however, that it really adds much to what we already know.

I found it to be more of a sober read than a depressing one. Women clamored for sexual freedom equal to what men supposedly had. It never occurred to them, and even most socially conservative men, that only the top 10% of men were able to successful womanizers. The result was that many men who would have married a young woman at a young age and enjoyed a healthy, fairly sexually active marriage with her for many years are stuck trying to find love and sex wherever they can find it. "Game" was only inevitable from that point because the average man now needs to be more competitive than he used to need to be.

With all due respect Michael, I'm having a hard time believing what you've written isn't satire: Like where we start with the simplifying assumption that the US consists entirely of 300 million Swedes.

I'm not insisting on anything other than the fact that hierarchical distinctions do exist, and that sometimes it is important to recognize them. As to how they should be recognized today I offer no definite prescriptions, but I strongly suggest that reviving some traditional practices might be a good place to start. Certainly the present attitude of rejecting past practices out of hand is unacceptable.

I made no mention of "middle class" because, in the sense I am using the term "class", economic status is not a significant determinant. The difficulty most Americans have in openly recognizing non-economic social distinctions is puzzling and a big part of the problem.

You write as though egalitarianism and individualism were opposites. In reality they are the same thing: a herd of individualists is still a herd. As an ideology, individualism destroys hierarchy and diversity no less effectively than equality.

A woman might wear a nice, dressy pantsuit to church as one way of dressing up for church. But if she wears jeans and a T-shirt, she just isn't bothering to dress up at all. The former might mean that she has a different notion of decorous dress-up wear for church from someone who opposes pantsuits for women. The latter means that she disagrees with the notion of decorous dress-up wear altogether.

Lydia, this example encapsulates the problem very well. It's not that we reject specific non-egalitarian practices (which is another issue), but that we reject non-egalitarian realities.

Jeff,
I'm not opposed to natural hierarchy. I'm for it. But classes (middle and otherwise) are an invention, not a natural hierarchy.

Regarding most traditional practices: If they are not immoral, then let folks do with them what they will -- follow them, reject them, modify them. And if large numbers of individuals decide to do as their neighbors do, then so be it. But I'm not interested in any hierarchy, natural or otherwise, that tries to put those folks in their place and that expects uniformity of dress or action from them because they happen to fall into one or another artificial category.

By the way, Erik von Kuenelt-Leddihn was a friend of mine. I once asked him, when we discussed herds, if he thought he was just a member of a different herd -- a royalist, anti-leftist, Roman Catholic herd. He said yes. In other words, herds, as you use the term, is an infinitely pliable rubric from which no one, including you, can possibly escape. Be careful with the concept. If we value consistency, then people who willingly belong to herds -- and you do -- can't denigrate herds.

Part of what self-government means is the authority of a community to establish its own norms, mores, customs, hierarchies etc -- and to enforce them. Obviously there are natural limits to this authority, but your anarchic principle of "let folks do with them what they will" is, in abstract at least, limitless, and thus positively destructive of self-government. It tends toward the precept that a single dissenter on the most trivial matter can rend the community apart to shelter his eccentricity. Where is Publius's "cool and deliberate sense of the community" in this?

Funny, I thought the discussion was more directed at what we are wearing (or not) to worship than what we wear to a fast food joint. If I am reading Mr. Bauman correctly in that he thinks what the average person wears to McDonald's is equally appropriate for worship -- he either misunderstands the nature and purpose of worship or he inhabits some very interesting fast food establishments.

Jeff, thank you for the information about veils. I have been wanting to buy one and wasn't sure which was more appropriate. Right now, I simply use a long scarf in cream.

Lydia, perhaps it's just me, but I do wish women would wear jeans/slacks *less* often. My personal experience is that I am much more likely to get treated like a woman when I am in a skirt than when I am in Lee jeans.

The McDonald's thing is related to Jeff's story of the man who always dressed in a suit when he took his wife out, even if it were only to McDonald's. I think that's sweet, but I probably don't put as much weight on it as _normative_ as Jeff does. As a matter of fact, I must confess that I'm very happy (and so is my husband) that we now dress up much less when we go out to dinner together than we did when we were younger. It's much more pleasant this way.

As far as women and jeans, I worry that perhaps some differences with Jeff will come out here if I say a lot. My take is that modesty is primary and that the main problem nowadays with women's jeans is that they have become just terribly immodest, in many ways. My solution, however, is to refer people to sites where they can find nice, classy women's jeans that are modest. My favorite in this regard is Blair.com. Their women's jeans are great, feminine but without that weird, sexualized, hyper-femininity that characterizes so many women's clothes nowadays. Those jeans have solved a potential problem for me as I thought about my daughter's teen years when boys' more modest jeans would not work anymore (because, e.g., they would be too big in the waist). (LL Bean also has some nice jeans for women--modest and high-waisted, but unfortunately very expensive.)

For my own part, I usually feel more covered-up and far more comfortable in pants than in a skirt, and I find pants invaluable for daily wear and for many activities. In my part of the world, it is also very _cold_ for quite a few months out of the year, and I'm always freezing when I get home from church and rush to change out of my nice church clothes into pants and warm socks.

I think we also need to realize that styles for women have moved on to the point where whether or not a style if feminine is not really the best way to "question" the clothing. As I said above, what we see now is clothing that is actually better and more modest if it is less self-consciously feminine. Take girls' vs. boys' shirts, for example. In the last few years, girls' T-shirts have become more feminine, and I certainly wish that they had not. They are now cut in a curved shape on either side, much shorter, to the point where they scarcely tuck into a skirt or anything else, and the sleeves are so short (cap sleeves) that a girl or young lady can scarcely raise her arm over her head without being immodest. They are also tight. This is far more feminine than the unisex T-shirts of yore, but it is highly inappropriate. Something similar is true of pants. Girls' and women's pants are now far more different from boys' and mens' than they were ten to fifteen years ago, and it looks absolutely awful. Similar features are relevant here: A curved-in shape on either side (a bit like 70's bell-bottoms), over-tightness, and a failure to cover properly. This exaggerated femininity is extremely undesirable. It makes the girl look like a loose woman.

I do think that pants have an entirely legitimate place in a woman's wardrobe and that a woman can look appropriately feminine in them, if she chooses them with care. I do wear a dress or skirt to church except on unusual occasions.

I'm with you on this one. But it's hopeless to fight against what modern man considers to be his inalienable right to be comfortable. IMO, in order for manners and decorum to return, we as a society will have to first get a true glimpse of either Heaven or Hell.

Lydia, please don't be shy about expressing a difference of opinion with me on this topic. I promise absolutely not to think any less of you. :-) Besides, I'm quite used to having this argument with good people whom I respect tremendously.

But I will say emphatically that it is possible to obtain clothing which is both feminine and modest. Possible - but not easy these days. My wife and daughter make 70% or more of the feminine clothing in my household, as there is very little which is suitable on the racks of clothing stores.

There are also numerous websites that sell modest, feminine clothing, but they can be pricey.

JC: "Feminism, the most successful of modern egalitarian projects...."

As a side note, not central to Cullbreath's article, I sometimes wonder how strong feminist identity is vis-a-vis other identities. A few examples:

Take the OJ Simpson trial. The prosecution wanted an all white female jury. The defense wanted an all black male jury. They compromised with a jury of mostly black females. And we all know how turned out.

Oprah Winfrey has spent much of her career preaching a form of universal feminism. Yet, when she had the choice of supporting Hillary Clinton over Obama (where Clinton by far has greater feminist credentials) she in a heartbeat chose Obama.

In some respects, isn't feminism breaking down as a political force? Look at the much criticized criteria for the Bill Gates scholarships. Notice that 'women' are not a category, and white women are excluded along with white males. (Google: "Bill Gates Scholarships Exclude White Kids")

In European countries it seems that the more multicultural they become, the more insignificant feminism becomes.

Does anyone see a patter here?

I wonder whether 'feminism' like 'class' is more of an issue in homogenous societies?

There are also numerous websites that sell modest, feminine clothing, but they can be pricey.

Indeed, I've highlighted Lilies here--one of my favorites for dresses, but pricey and also a bit complicated as far as sizing is concerned.

However, our central disagreement probably lies in the fact that I think a woman can look quite feminine (nicely so) in pants, and I don't therefore regard them as per se unfeminine.

I also tend to think that the workarounds for various activities are simply not at all worth it. I remember one time many years ago listening to some women talk among themselves in a group which did not believe in women wearing pants. They were literally discussing how to make culottes for their girls to wear to go sledding. This conversation was taking place either in upstate New York or in Vermont--I forget now which it was. How they kept their girls' ankles and calves from being frost-bitten I did not inquire. I have seen young ladies fall down on the softball field in culottes (during camp weeks with churches that did not believe in pants-wearing) and feel very embarrassed, understandably. So I just do disagree that it is worthwhile to try to maintain a ban on pants for all possible activities.

Michael, if I understand Jeff's use of "class", it is not that sense of class that is rooted in economic stratus, or in those other kinds of status that derive from money in essence, though probably money is a not insignificant component of how that class expresses itself. An old southern "gentleman" who is nearly destitute would still go out in his one threadbare suit as an expression of his genteel "class". (By which he himself would understand, not that he is "better" than others, but that he is devoted to doing the right thing in the right way, including paying a higher devotion to those things, like art and music and studies, that are of themselves nobler.)

Ultimately, the distinction needed is that of order. The moderns' sense of social "order" as they observed it in their parent's habits was that of an order received by custom alone, and having no internal reason for being OTHER than that custom. If that were all there were to the customs, then changing them at will might make sense. But it is simply not the case.

For example, for worship of the Supreme Being, one is supposed to apply one's best capacity, including wearing one's best. Even if (as happened not infrequently in ages past) one only has 2 outfits of clothing, then it is natural and orderly to don the one that is more whole, clean, and of finer fabric, than the one that is dirty, holed, and of baser material. The orderliness is not man-made, it is driven by the nature of the activity itself. The concrete expression of that order depends on one's circumstances and the culture, but the ordering principle does not.

There are, admittedly, diverse aspects of the resulting custom that ARE man-made, such as using white for maidens and black for matrons. It can be entirely different in a different culture. What cannot happen, though, is that a youth of 40 years ago who lived in a western European / American culture decide to STOP wearing nicer clothes and don jeans for church, without defying custom. And since custom protects orderliness and morality, he is thereby skirting a defiance of the orderliness and morality that the custom serves.

After 40 years of attempts to dumb-down dress at church, it still takes only a half-dozen pointed sermons over the course of 2 years for a pastor to get the local culture to revert back much closer to the norm of 40 years ago, which suggests to me that the eradication of the custom is not quite so complete as people would like to believe: they (most of them) know what it _means_ to dress up still: they would dress up - quite readily - for a dinner with the president, though they might make a poor job of it if they fail to consult those more knowledgeable. They just don't like to be required to live up to that standard week in and week out. However much they want to believe that dress doesn't matter, they retain tendrils of knowledge of the truth, reality breaking in through their defenses.

What I find particularly distressing now is that it is increasingly difficult to dress up nicely, unless one has clothes made specially, because the clothes simply do not exist. What I mean by this is that when young ladies do attempt to dress up (e.g., for a prom), they wear clothes that are either very ugly (though fancy) or terribly immodest, or both. And I'm including nice young ladies as well. An extreme example is the wedding dress. Most women agree that one should dress up for a wedding. When was the last time that any of us saw a wedding dress that was not _at least_ completely bare on the shoulders, if not worse?

I do not know if there is a relationship between the abandonment of a sense of the importance of dressing up, on the one hand, and the increasing inappropriateness of available dress-up clothes, but I sense that there may be.

Yes, I think there definitely is. Here is the connection I see, as it applies especially to young women. Without a culturally approved mode of dressing distinctly for courtship (or, more generally, to be noticeable as courtable), young women are pushed into the other way of being more noticeable, which is to dress more provocatively, more suggestively. This has gone further and further in the simple direction of "leaves more skin bare." I have seen this in the children of my quite conservative friends: a young lady's very concept of dressing for notice consists directly and immediately of showing more skin. The very meaning of "old fashioned" or "out-of-date" consists essentially in those clothes that cover up more than today's fashion.

My daughter came home from a friend's graduation party last summer laughing as she told me, "Mom, there was a girl there dressed in a green towel." In a way, of course, it isn't funny. And I have no doubt that the "green towel" dress cost a lot more than a real green towel. But she said she couldn't help having to resist the urge to say, "Excuse me, but do you realize that you're wearing a towel?"

Is it as odd to expect you Traditionalists to understand the underlying psycho-socio motives in the overwhelming historical drive towards "equality" as it is for the declining moderns to understand the human needs for healthy hierarchy? Having read for 20 years attacks against modernity and egalitarianism... this I expect from many of a kind of Evolian leaning-- certainly it's reminiscent of de Maistre.

But your stated principle, your webpage Principle (in the About), is to reject either extreme of fundamentalist or "liberal". So is it not equally worthy to consider rejecting the mere dichotomy, the mere extremes of Equality vs Hierarchy in the name of finding a livingcenter, where each principle is in its proper place, yet each has a place?

Certainly you understand that the hierarchical notion, "each in its place" implies the egalitarian suggestion of, "a place for each"?

Briefly: Do you see any role at all for equality (taken as a principle)? If you do, how do you integrate it, as a principle, with hierarchy?

If you can't --or won't-- do this, how can you blame the moderns for failing at it as well?

Pardon my presumption or apparent rudeness, please; I intend only to be kind. But if kindness is lacking, is there ground for either hierarchy or equality, or at least our submission to either. Perhaps the real problem is that we don't want to accept an unkind, even bruish, equality.

Perhaps they don't want to accept an unkind or brutish hierarchy? Given history, are they easily blamed for this "rebellion"?

Here is my contention: In Christ, there is real equality. And only in Christ, is there real hierarchy. Is the refusal to accept less a mortal error?

I agree with the overall point of this, but a lot of the specifics are off-base, I think. For example, the factors driving horizontalism in modern architecture have a lot to do with practicality and comfort and little to do with denying hierarchy (the trend of lower church podiums may be a legitimate example of hierarchy avoidance, though). Humans feel more comfortable when we have lots of open space to move around (to the point that some people - clausterphobics - panic when they don't). We move around horizontally, not vertically (if the primary means of human transportation was winged flight, maybe this would be different). Also, the less space inside a building that is occupied by walls, the more of it that is usable, so it's also a matter of efficiency. What's driving the move to more open spaces now is simply that the technology to build a building or house that is structurally sound, despite having few walls, has gotten more economical.

Orfeo, your comment is fair. It seems to me that the equality comes forward out of this: not manufacturing fictitious and self-serving bases for distinction, which bases are the foundation for unequal treatment that is irrational and uncharitable. Customs that primarily keep in place unreal bases of distinction, such as "keeping colored folk where they belong" by intentionally choosing not to educate them, are bad customs. But customs that primarily touch on distinctions that are real and ordered to the true good are not bad customs as such even if they happen to impinge on some more than others (like white veils for maidens and black for matrons).

The mantra of the modernist wave of change (that hit the sexual mores in the 60's, for example) was not to throw out all the bad customs, it was closer to "throw out the old customs" by way of an insinuation that the old customs were baseless. It had to be made as insinuation and assumption, because it didn't bear scrutiny, and those bent on change didn't want scrutiny.

Perhaps the real problem is that we don't want to accept an unkind, even bruish, equality.

Perhaps they don't want to accept an unkind or brutish hierarchy?

How true. Unfortunately, given original sin, people are inclined to perceive any kind of obligation to submit their minds and hearts and wills to another as brutish hierarchy, so we should not give too facile an acceptance of claims by those who clamor for change that they are merely getting rid of old, unjust, and baseless hierarchical structures. What they are usually doing is getting rid of old structures that have a lot of good but have a little not-so-good mixed in.

St. Thomas says that the presumptive force is in favor of a given established custom, and to legitimately get rid of it, you need to not only show that there is a better way to do the thing at hand, but also ensure that the old custom is not keeping other goods in hand (since customs often interlock), and that the very process of change over to a new (which is itself disruptive of order) does not damage the common good more than the new proposed practice is worth. This presumption was universally dismissed out of hand by so-called progressives.

When was the last time that any of us saw a wedding dress that was not _at least_ completely bare on the shoulders, if not worse?

I was best man in a Traditional Latin Mass wedding last month, and the bride's dress was very modest, as much as my two little girls' flower girl dresses. No shoulders! I agree though that it is very rare.

St. Thomas says that the presumptive force is in favor of a given established custom, and to legitimately get rid of it, you need to not only show that there is a better way to do the thing at hand, but also ensure that the old custom is not keeping other goods in hand (since customs often interlock), and that the very process of change over to a new (which is itself disruptive of order) does not damage the common good more than the new proposed practice is worth.

Tony, Montaigne makes the same point very strongly in one of his essays. It's a point that can't be made too often: in itself societal change is bad. We have to be damn sure it's worth it before enacting it.

One problem with the motto that "societal change is bad" is that it makes it hard to be a reactionary. Ironically. It would _now_ be a societal change for business owners to be once more permitted to discriminate on the basis of gender, but I think it might well be a good change. Nonetheless, if we say that societal change is bad, that seems to put not just a small but quite a _large_ burden of proof on the traditionalist reactionary to defend a return to the old days when a business owner could say, "I don't think a woman would fit well in this department" or "Every time I hire a woman she gets pregnant and leaves, and then I've wasted my training," or whatever.

One problem with the motto that "societal change is bad" is that it makes it hard to be a reactionary.

I agree that it's a serious problem. But there's no question in my mind that the principle is true. That doesn't mean that any change is always worse than no change. It does mean recognizing that change in itself is an evil for society, since it dislodges people from the past, and therefore that the good being pursued has to be sufficiently great not only to overcome the evil being corrected but also to compensate for the evil of introducing change itself.

This is the point that revolutionaries never grasp, whether they think they're building a futuristic utopia or returning to a primitive state of nature. They compare the existing state of things with the fantasy in their minds and prefer the fantasy. The don't like to recognize the intrinsic evil of revolution, and whether doing the sorts of things that revolutionaries do might be much, much worse than allowing the present state of things to continue.

if we say that societal change is bad, that seems to put not just a small but quite a _large_ burden of proof on the traditionalist reactionary to defend a return to the old days

The basic size of the burden of proof is proportionate to the goods that the custom protects. A minor issue is a minor burden.

But more importantly, Lydia, that's why I made the point above that we haven't completely lost the social nuance of dressing up, it has been quashed some but not completely. We still have a ways to go on that one, and the new not-dressing-up approach is far, far from a real custom. So a reactionary has a much lower hurdle to get over in such a case.

I think you had a good point there, Tony, but it's going to be the kind of thing we have to look at carefully in each case. I think a pastor/priest is going to have a much harder row to hoe convincing all the women in his parish that they should not wear pants in daily life. And it's fine as far as I'm concerned that the status quo has shifted on that one and that the no-pants approach should be, in a sense, "revolutionary" now. Interestingly, too, I think that the reasons for which a shift is made in the first place may not at all be in place decades later when a "new normal" is in place. Not calling me "Mrs. McGrew" does not _now_ indicate any disrespect, though if a man did it spontaneously in England a hundred years ago, it would.

Some changes, such as those toward freedom and away from slavery, are good. Dumping the Jim Crow laws was good. Dislodging communism was good. Moving America away from smoking (the further the better) will be good. The death of disco was good, as will be the end of hip hop, should it ever occur.

It's an open question whether or not the death of blogging will be a good (wink).

Unfortunately, given original sin, people are inclined to perceive any kind of obligation to submit their minds and hearts and wills to another as brutish hierarchy

Are you American? Here, the public spares no disgrace to submit to, sometimes even to grovel to authority just so long as it is based upon State Welded Force and not upon idea or principle or faith. And it certainly appears the rest of the Anglo world has gone the same way, and perhaps Europe is not far behind. Of course Communism in eastern Europe was entirely authoritarian as well. I believe you are making a good point, but it seems some kind of distinction is in order on your part. Clearly, in many ways, there is more "submission" today than ever. How do you explain this?

It seems to me that the equality comes forward out of this: not manufacturing fictitious and self-serving bases for distinction, which bases are the foundation for unequal treatment that is irrational and uncharitable.

Here you seem to present equality as the absence of a corrupt hierarchy. Does that mean that it has no "positive reality", no good that only it can fulfill, that it is not a principle on par with hierarchy itself? Or simply put, what is equality good for?

Perhaps I am being cruel here. Many readers may just be becoming familiar with the positive aspects of hierarchy, and with the negative aspects of a false and tyrannical "egalitarianism" that is in fact nothing of the sort. And then here I come in and start defending the status of equality as a principle equal to hierarchy. I'm curious what people think of that.

Let me explain my motive: I fear that in reaction to the sins of this age, we may be contemplating new and old sins of another age. A gradual yet inexorable return to modes and orders based upon hierarchy is a forgone conclusion in my mind. I am more concerned with the sins of the coming new era of hierarchy, than I am with this already passing one. If our new hierarchies go to extreme, fail to accommodate elements of equality, and even as in the past, excuse crimes in order to celebrate hierarchy alone, then we and none other will be responsible for the birth of radical violent extremist Egalitarianism yet again.

I would like to see this endlessly recurring round of conflict between the two camps to find a resolution. Currently many in both camps think the only resolution will come with the murder of all their enemies. Of course, it was that kind of thinking which gave us WWII-- but what it didn't give us was a resolution of the conflict. What more could the warmongers of both camps possibly hope for beyond WWII? WWIII? Ragnarok? If WWII didn't settle this issue, what scale of violence do they propose?

Bloodthirsty tyrannies have, in fact, existed in the name of hierarchy and of Tradition, just as they certainly have in the name of Égalité. Even fans of the Spanish Inquisition (and there are fans of it in Traditionalist circles) must admit that it at very least contributed to the backlash that was Protestantism and also to the financial destruction of Spain by its morally outraged minorities.

We must, then, establish hierarchy upon good grounds, as you suggested at the top of your post --upon a principle that will endure beyond the normal cycles of political history, beyond the endless rounds of reaction and over-reaction. Surely someone here has an idea of what this enduring ground or grounds might be. How do we avoid the moral outrages that spark counter-reactions and "rebellion to hierarchy"?

For me to say, "Christ", is at once true, but also all too often a platitude. So realistically, speaking, how exactly do we re-establish hierarchy in a manner that won't simultaniously re-establish hierarchy's enemies? What is the formula to or of healthy hierarchy, given that simply attempting to kill or terrorize all "non-conformists" has been demonstrably a failure?

So realistically, speaking, how exactly do we re-establish hierarchy in a manner that won't simultaniously re-establish hierarchy's enemies?

First of all, you won't ever succeed in forming a hierarchy, or a political order, that has no enemies, no matter how good, or even perfect , the order is. Can't be done, because there are enemies of the good (e.g. Satan), and there are people who are wholly in thrall to enemies of the good.

But if you want to leave aside those enemies as something you can't to anything about just now, then you have to base the hierarchy on principles, and you have to argue those principles to people to persuade them, and you have to live those principles so they can see them in action. The principles needed are the ones which establish the hierarchical reality of ordered goods in society, and most of them are readily contained within living a Christian life. In general, some of the principles are (a) that man's nature is a social rational animal, (b) man created so that his own good and the common good flow together, and (c) solidarity and (d) subsidiarity both help build the common good.

Unfortunately, many people are so ignorant and bemuddled in their understanding of human nature and of politics that they are unable to understand the arguments. Therefore, at root you have to educate people, sometimes from the ground up. And since you cannot educate someone who is either closed to the truth or certain they already have it, you can't expect success all the time: every good society will have enemies. Only grace will overcome those who hate the truth or whose pride leaves them no room for truth.

I think a pastor/priest is going to have a much harder row to hoe convincing all the women in his parish that they should not wear pants in daily life. And it's fine as far as I'm concerned that the status quo has shifted on that one and that the no-pants approach should be, in a sense, "revolutionary" now.

Lydia, certainly women having the freedom to wear pants is much more firmly established as the current norm than "not-dressing-up" is. But beyond that, the principles which underlie the current state are important: As long as women occupy jobs and perform activities where pants are so much more appropriate and modest than wearing skirts, then so long the standard should remain that women can wear pants.

But even granting that, it could be possible to pull back a little bit from the current state (which is virtually that women can wear pants in all times and places), and suggest leaving alone women wearing pants when that is more useful but having it becoming customary for women not to wear pants when things other than usefulness are more important. Such as divine worship, or a ball, etc.

In case I didn't make this clear, I certainly see that your response is thoughtful and kind. But it also raises many more issues than I could address in a single post. Let me address just two of them, one below, and one more that I send subsequently.

An almost theological affair ensued for me when I read:

given original sin, people are inclined to perceive any kind of obligation to submit their minds and hearts and wills to another as brutish hierarchy

Does this mean that it is more a followers fault for not following well than it is a leaders fault for not leading well?

Surely a great man inspire a following, and tolerates dissent. Petty tyrants enforce obedience and rightly fear dissent. Is rebellion against vice and tyranny a sin, original or otherwise?

Also, my interpretation of the Garden of Eden account in Genesis sees much more relationally than just the most phenomenal narrative. I believe the author was just simply witty past modern understanding, and wove many layers of rich insight into the story. Moderns seem to have no appreciation for the abundant wit of the Old Testament.

Take for instance God's planting of a tree, at the center, which is then made a great deal of as "forbidden". On the face of it, this is absurd. Why place what is forbidden in the midst of the potentially tempted? Surely the Father of Heaven isn't naive. This is akin to placing a bowl of cookies in the midst of an unguarded daycare. We know it is a sin to tempt others, so what happened here?

[Well, quickly aside from examining what is germain to the matter at hand, let me just say that I read herein that God's motives were witty, just, and divine, and beyond the ken of those who take themselves or their causes too seriously (meaning that they place these things above persons).]

I propose the divine wrath is not kindled by opposition per se in the Genesis account, but by Adam and Eve's series of betrayals beginning with Adam's denial of responsibility to God, his dishonoring of Eve in assigning blame to her alone, and then Eve's denial of all responsibility in blaming the Serpent. The text suggests that it was this low behaviour on everyone's part that outraged God to the point of cursing mankind with historical development's endless labors. Conversely, there are instances where God is contended with by the faithful (eg Abraham, Jacob, even Jonah, etc...), and even He seem to take it "in stride" as they say. I don't think God takes "obedience" as the greatest good (as, say, Islam or Fundamentalists do), but he does take honor, faithfulness, loyalty and responsibility as such. Note, these sometime war against one's desires for obedience.

It is not that obedience isn't a good, its just that any father or employer would rather have a responsible follower than an obedient one. Sometimes nothing is more annoying than "obedience". Unless one is a Prussian. But then one still has to deal with Kulturkampf and Hitler. Obedience can have its downside.

given original sin, people are inclined to perceive any kind of obligation to submit their minds and hearts and wills to another as brutish

Of course, but how on this alone do you explain the famous "Milgram experiment"? Surely men rebel to escape responsibility; but do we not also see everywhere a deep desire in the public to be slavish, to rely upon "authorities", governments, states to take all of ones responsibilities, burdens and sins upon itself? Many willingly submit themselves to slavery since it magically abnegates all personal burdens. Such is Islam. Are not these cowards who flee personal responsibility just as sinful as the rebellious who at least "take matters in hand"? Slave governed(!) regimes like the Ottoman empire prospered; indeed, many Russians still pine away for the Soviet days just as many muslim (or other fundamentalist) women willing, even gladly submit to the rule of lash and burkha. One needs only to speak with a devote muslim woman, or LaRouchian to see the almost incomprehensible intensity of such slavish devotion to tyranny for oneself.

I don't mean to be harsh to you, especially since your points are well made and more importantly, true. Rather, I am hoping to show not that your points are wrong, but that there remains still further points to be made until we can come to a complete understanding of both that which we laud, hierarchy, and that which we Trads sometimes castigate, the drive for equality.

First of all, you won't ever succeed in forming a hierarchy, or a political order, that has no enemies, no matter how good, or even perfect , the order is.

You are a fine contender! Very good point. This is certainly true, especially lately.

But consider, for instance, how many nations oppose the Principality of Liechtenstein? Examples like this abound. Not every company necessarily has enemies. Nor does every family, even if these families are "hierarchical"! Our bodies are hierarchies, of a sort, and they have no mortal enemies, just opportunists of the moment.

I say "mortal" enemies, since there are both "mortal" enemies and "venal" ones. Venal enemies just happen to be one's opponent, they don't will enmity, they are simply pursuing some other goal. This form of enmity is always and everywhere to be expected, even within oneself. But mortal enmity-- that cannot everywhere and always exist or it calls into question the very Grace of God's creating and plan. Mortal enmity intends the destruction of the Other. One here does not "love one's enemies", one despises them. Unfortunately this is all too common, even though it serves no good, not even for the warrior in battle who must both respect and understand his adversary in order to prevail.

I think one of the most important points here is that we shouldn't be arguing for hierarchy in some abstract sense but for a particular type of hierarchy--for example, Christian complementarianism between men and women, with all that that implies regarding chivalry and the like. I do not think our site's "about" page should be viewed as placing us in some via media between "fundamentalism" and liberalism. That's a complete misconstrual. We defend Christian morals, the Christian worldview, etc., against _Islam_ and the _jihad_ and liberalism. To replace "Islam" with "fundamentalism" is just completely misguided.

Concrete evils should be opposed with concrete goods, such as, e.g., the image of the loving di-archy of a Christian family, ruled by complementary male and female monarchs, not with abstractions like "hierarchy" or "tradition."

When was the last time that any of us saw a wedding dress that was not at least completely bare on the shoulders, if not worse?-Lydia

I was best man in a Traditional Latin Mass wedding last month, and the bride's dress was very modest, as much as my two little girls' flower girl dresses. No shoulders! I agree though that it is very rare.-Michael Sullivan

A cousin, daughter of Scandanavian Lutheran stock, wore the all too usual strapless, shoulder-baring immodest garb at her wedding. A few months later, I was invited by working-class, evangelical Protestant Ukranian immigrant neighbors to be a guest at their son's wedding. His bride's gown started high on her neck and covered every bit of her on down except that which was hidden by her gloves and nearly-obscured shoes. She too looked every bit a princess, not the kind seen in Disney cartoons but the sort found in histories that tell of the union of two great, proud noble families.

My cousin's distressing choice of wedding costume signaled, among other things, that the significance of the day rested heavily on a one-time excuse to party. The bride of my neighbor's son wore a dress that showed the day's ceremony was the beginning of a solemn, soberly undertaken, lifetime commitment.

Orfeo, your notion of what happened in the Garden is wrong on so many levels that I am quite sure it is useless for me to bother stating them all. Just to give one example: In your explanation, the serpent is a victim, but in Genesis the serpent is punished by God for evil-doing. But I refuse to drag us all through the muck of a Genesis exegesis. Suffice it to say that your interpretation creates so many problems for Christians that it would make Genesis and Christianity difficult to make coherent.

Of course, but how on this alone do you explain the famous "Milgram experiment"?

I do not say that men look for excuses to rebel against authority at every turn. That's not my thought, nor necessary to the point I was making. It is that men are inclined to rebel against authority whenever authority binds them to something repugnant or challenging. It is equally harmonious with original sin that men are ALSO inclined to give up that responsibility they have for their own actions when wielding that responsibility is itself repugnant or challenging.

You seem to agree with me that there are indeed times when men rebel against authority because it binds them in a way that pinches. I agree with you that hierarchies are often defective in various ways, including using authority for self-serving instead of for the good. In that case, really the only remaining question (from my argument above) then is, where is the more correct initial presumption: that a custom or a command obliges us to follow, or that a custom or command must be justified in detail before it can be considered binding? Where is the burden of proof?

Jeff, thanks for mentioning tattoos. On this, I have a query: Has anyone's beauty been enhanced by a tattoo? I suspect no red-blooded American male would actually think to himself, "Ahh, if Angelina Jolie only had just one more tattoo, that would do the trick. She would then be more beautiful than she was before the new one-dimensional ornament." I didn't think so.

Now concerning women wearing pants at church: On June 12, 1960 Giuseppe Card. Siri authored the document Notification Concerning Men’s Dress Worn By Women. Card. Siri says wearing pants is not a grave offense against modesty as such. What to him seems the gravest issue with pants is that it affects the woman’s identity in how she understands herself, in how she relates to her husband, and in how she relates to her children.

I recognize that since Card. Siri’s time there are now modest feminine pants on the market. And I recognize that there are certain occupations for which pants may be more suited than a dress. It is my belief, however, that a woman should wear a dress more often than pants... namely for the reasons Card. Siri mentions and especially at holy Mass, as a dress more identifies the woman.

Jeff Singer: If you're still reading, it's great to be in the sphere of the FSSP whose priests are unafraid of offending people with the truth. Seek them out!

Lydia: My wife and daughters, remember, live on a farm, and there isn't anything they can't do around here in a skirt or a dress (with tights underneath if needed). Well, that's not exactly true. It would be dangerous for them to operate some mechanical equipment in loose-fitting clothes, but that's my job anyway. Not sure what riding a horse might require ...

Pastors and priests have a lot more to worry about today than women wearing pants or dresses, like trying to get women to understand that God cannot, and will not, budge on calling a no fault divorce from a normal, acceptable husband and remarriage to a new man anything but adultery. With ~72% of divorces being initiated by women, that is sadly where they must focus on convincing the public about fundamental Christian values and truth regarding male-female interactions and relationships.

budge on calling a no fault divorce from a normal, acceptable husband and remarriage to a new man anything but adultery. With ~72% of divorces being initiated by women,

Surely, no-fault divorce is an abomination on the land. Haven't we seen enough of its fruit to have general agreement on that? Why do we bother making the marriage contract if one party can walk away from the contract just because they feel like it? That's totally irrational.

On the other hand, I know of only 2 divorces among my immediate, close acquaintances. both initiated by women. Both for good causes: one was a new marriage where the guy turns out to have been doing drugs, and finally hit the wife (once). The second the husband was in a serious, life-long pornography habit. Now, for the first the violence was enough to get a separation going, I don't know if it would have been sufficient as cause for divorce without no-fault. For the second, in any well-grounded society a porn habit would be grounds for separation and/or divorce but I am doubtful whether it is considered so in our degenerate culture.

I also should like to keep in mind that a well-ordered society would distinguish between a permanent division that enables the 2 to walk away from each other's legal entanglements and establishes custody of children, and a declaration that the parties are free to marry others. The problem in our society is that today we can't get the first without the second, but they needn't be set up that way in principle.

The Law, tony, obliges no one to follow, since it is non-living it has no will. It is to God or men to whom we should look for our obligations. Customs and commands have no inherent good nor evil-- they simply are. It is up to the active agents to determine their intrinsic worth by valuing them, and by making them valuable, namely by using them wisely and lovingly.

"Orfeo, your notion of what happened in the Garden is wrong on so many levels that I am quite sure it is useless for me to bother stating them all."

Feel free to try, Tony. Perhaps just one example would suffice to put me to shame, or at least to a corrective self examination. By the way, my intent was not to imply that the Serpent (and/or Devil) was less than the ape or fool of God, but neither do I intend to give it more credit than that. No friend of God could deny that it is the height of folly to think oneself the better of the Living Good Himself.

Also, are you aware that in the language of the ancient world, the Serpent per se (as opposed to other depictions of the demonic) represented both the libido and clever ambition (if not at times just simple "wisdom" [as 'gnosis' not 'sophia' but perhaps 'sophos']. In some senses, just as "the Devil" can be known both as exteriour and interiour to oneself, so too "the Serpent" can be read in the Genesis account to be either an exteriour or interiour agent. Obviously, to anyone who has wrestled with such wriggly beasts, such a foe as this is both within us and without. Not, I should note, unlike a cosmic perversion, inversion even, of the divine Trinity wherein God is at once Transcendent and also Immanent, at least in the Good, that is.

I should say, in parting, that I am neither inexperienced theologically, nor academically-- and I don't suffer from impiety either. So to simply assert that there is no hint of merit in what is at least my personal devotional reading of my own God's sacred text seems to me to be a bit hasty, especially since I am a very careful and patient reader. Perhaps there is at least some good in my perspective that just so happens to escape you at this time? I know it might be a bit forward of me to suggest that there is something lacking in another's arsenal of learning, but it is not a suggestion that I myself fail to take to heart. I'm sure you have wonderful things to show me, Tony-- and in fact, up to now at least, I've found our conversation quite stimulating. Do keep on, please!

Thank you for this article! I do not understand why we have such a problem accepting each other for our differences. I like to compare it to flower girl dresses to those who understand, no two are the same but, they are all beautiful! It's our differences that make us unique, wouldn't the world be a lot more boring if we were all exactly the same?

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